A Republican strategist is suing GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump and his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, alleging they defamed her character.
Cheryl Jacobus filed the lawsuit Monday in New York, accusing Trump and his aide of having “intentionally, purposefully, and with full knowledge of their falsity published defamatory statements” about her.
{mosads}The suit, which is seeking $4 million in damages, claims they made the statements “with the purpose of making her an object lesson to those who might question Trump and his fitness for office, to incite a virtual mob against her, to destroy her reputation, and to bully her into silence.”
The lawsuit says Trump’s campaign “actively recruited” Jacobus starting in May 2015, when Trump aide Jim Dornan, who has since left the campaign, tried to bring her on as a spokeswoman. The pair had lunch and stayed in contact, according to Jacobus. She then met Lewandowski at Trump’s office, according to the lawsuit.
Jacobus decided against the position after witnessing Lewandowski’s “agitated and unprofessional” behavior, the suit says.
After Jacobus spoke about the GOP presidential race on cable news in January, Lewandowski said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that she “came to the office on multiple occasions trying to get a job from the Trump campaign, and when she wasn’t hired, clearly she went off and was upset by that.”
The lawsuit also references a February tweet from Trump, who claimed Jacobus “went hostile” after being turned down a job within his campaign, calling her “a real dummy.”
The lawsuit says Trump received cease-and-desist letters from Jacobus’s attorney, though the candidate sent another tweet focused on the GOP strategist:
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement published by The New York Times that the lawsuit had no merit: “This is just another frivolous lawsuit and an attempt to gain notoriety at the expense of Donald Trump.”
The lawsuit opens fresh legal issues for the Trump campaign days after authorities in Florida declined to prosecute a battery charge against Lewandowski following his run-in with former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields last month.